


Shed a Shift, Slough a Skin

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Camping, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25838722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Lysithea thought, not for the first time, that things were a good deal simpler before Linhardt decided he wanted to switch to their house.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/Lysithea von Ordelia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Shed a Shift, Slough a Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the fairy tale "Prince Lindworm" which you can read for free here, if you're unfamiliar. I recommend it, it's fun: https://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Norwegian_folktale_3.html#a
> 
> I cannot see Linhardt's name without thinking of this fairy tale so here is this. Also, I am just past the timeskip in the Verdant Wind route and that's all I've played so far, so there aren't really any spoilers for any route in particular, to my knowledge, although there are spoilers for Lysithea's backstory and character arc. This is set sometime before the timeskip in Verdant Wind.

Lysithea thought, not for the first time, that things were a good deal simpler before Linhardt decided he wanted to switch to their house. 

He was nosy, first of all. He asked her questions about her crest, and her extraordinary magical ability, and he didn’t seem to want to take ‘no’ for an answer. Then there was the fact that her other friends liked him. Lysithea pretended this bothered her less than it did, but she wasn’t sure she was entirely successful at playing off her jealousy when Marianne, Hilda, and Lorenz welcomed this newcomer with open arms, let him have a spot at their usual table in the dining hall, and seemed not to notice his pointed comments about the strength of her magic and his probing questions about her family history and crest. None of which would be a problem in the first place if the professor wasn’t so obviously fond of him as well, or at least fond enough to invite him to join the Golden Deer. 

It was galling, frankly. Everyone had been taken in by this arrogant, lazy noble, and nobody seemed to be on Lysithea’s side. But then, people usually weren’t. She didn’t make friends easily and never had, and a small part of her thought that it was possible she might grow to like Linhardt as she’d grown to like the others (for that had certainly not been easy going at first). But only if he agreed to lay off interrogating her right under the noses of her classmates. 

And then something happened that cast Linhardt into a new light for Lysithea. 

The professor generally did not take the Golden Deer very far away from the monastery for training purposes, but sometimes instructions came down from Rhea or Seteth to investigate some occurrence more than a day’s travel away, and on those occasions, they brought tents. There had initially been a good deal of complaining about this practice, both from Lorenz, who insisted it was beneath him to sleep on the ground like some commoner, and from Hilda, who said that if the professor and Claude were going to make them stay out overnight they might at least have the courtesy to let them all stay at a village inn where they didn’t have to hunt and prepare their own food. Claude eventually told the pair that if they were going to make such a fuss, they could share a tent and the duties involved in feeding and bedding themselves between them, which put such an abrupt and complete stop to it that Lysithea found herself filing it away to think about later. 

It was on one such journey through the Kingdom to pick up something valuable or other on behalf of the church (or so Claude had told them all when they’d set out from the monastery in the early morning with bedrolls and hunting gear amongst their equipment) that Linhardt began to redeem himself in Lysithea’s eyes, but not before piercing through her and inciting an intrigue she generally did not feel towards people. They’d pitched tents (Hilda sharing with Marianne and Lorenz, reluctantly, with Claude) and caught fish from the creek, skinned them, roasted them over the fire, and were now sitting in a circle around it as the flames slowly sank and the smoke rose into the star-strewn sky. 

It was chilly along the northern coast, even in summer, and that was part of the reason none of them had yet retired to the tents to sleep. There was wood left, stacked beside Raphael who had chopped it enthusiastically as the sun was setting, and although Lysithea was pleasantly full and tired after a long day’s travel, she made no move to get up and leave the group. As much work as these overnight excursions could be, and as much as she disliked sharing a tent with their professor, like she was the baby of the group who needed looking after, this part she loved. Sitting with the rest of the Deer, enjoying the fire together, chatting pleasantly without the threat of someone from the monastery looming over them. Lysithea had found nearly all of the others to be much more open on these occasions then they would usually be, and she wondered if the same would hold true for Linhardt. 

“I suppose we ought to get some sleep,” Lorenz said as the fire burned down, and Leonie shook her head. 

“Aw, come on, Claude and the professor are still off talking about _battle_ _strategy_ ,” Leonie scoffed, and Lorenz looked scandalized while Hilda grinned. It was an open secret amongst the Deer that Claude had a thing for their professor, and Lysithea wouldn’t put it past them to stay down by the creek talking well into the night, so long as there was a steady supply of bait for moonlight fishing as a pretense to keep them there. “Let’s tell ghost stories.” 

Lysithea’s smile slid off her face. “Let’s not,” she said lightly, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she shook her head. “Lorenz is right, we should go to sleep. We’re another half day’s journey from our destination and then we’ll have to head back again, we ought to rest.” 

“I happen to know a good story, actually,” Linhardt piped up, and Lysithea glared at him. 

“Do you? Let’s hear it,” Raphael said eagerly, picking up another log and settling it onto the dying fire. 

“I’m not sure Lysithea wants to hear it,” Linhardt said, glancing at her. 

“I’d like to hear it,” Marianne piped up unexpectedly, and Lysithea’s heart sank, “although not if it’s an especially scary story. All alone, out here in the woods, in the north, far from home... “ she shivered. 

“Exactly! It’s the perfect atmosphere for a ghost story!” Leonie chimed in. “Go on, Linhardt.” 

“Well,” Linhardt began slowly, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees so that the firelight illuminated his pale round face, “it starts a long, long time ago, in the north. Not so very far from here, I’d imagine.” 

“In the northern part of the Kingdom?” Hilda asked, frowning. 

“Further north. Somewhere in Sreng, I believe,” Linhardt said in an offhand tone. “But I doubt it would be much help to know precisely where; this happened so long ago that the four saints had not yet come to be.” There was a small sound of fabric rustling as Marianne shifted her position with her legs tucked underneath her next to Hilda, but apart from that the circle was deadly still. “The face of the world was different then. Perhaps magic was different, too.” The sound of his voice and the flickering of the flames had lulled everyone into silence. He was good at this, Lysithea thought with surprise. She wouldn’t have expected it, somehow. 

“At that time there was a king and a queen, and they thought their line would surely end with them, for they had no children. But one day the queen was walking in the forest, and she came across an elderly woman.” 

“Hang on,” Raphael cut in, and Lysithea all but jumped at the sudden intrusion, so intent had she been on Linhardt’s story. “This sounds an awful lot like a fairy tale. Are you sure this is a ghost story?” 

“It’s a scary story of a sort,” Linhardt said defensively, and Ignatz elbowed Raphael. “Anyway, As I was saying. The queen came across an elderly woman, who asked her why she looked so sad.” 

“‘Oh, old woman,’ the queen said, ‘I grieve because my husband and I have been unable to conceive a child. Our bloodline will die with us, and there will be nobody to bear the crest of our house once we are dead and buried in the ground.’” 

“I was under the impression that the four saints brought magic to Fodlan. How could a crest line predate that event?” Lorenz asked, his chin in his hand. 

“It’s a story,” Linhardt shrugged. “One, I might add, I believe you all said you wished to hear. Would you mind not interrupting me further?” 

Lorenz sighed and waved a hand for Linhardt to continue. 

" _As I was saying_ ,” Linhardt cleared his throat, and his tone switched back to the carrying performance it had become before the interruption. “The old woman smiled and beckoned the queen closer, reaching into her robes and pulling out a small golden chalice. ‘Take this and place it in your garden,’ she instructed the queen, ‘and in the morning when the dew clings to the flowers, return there and pick it up and drink. Underneath you will find two roses.” 

Lysithea was barely sitting on the log she’d been perched on all evening, so much was she leaning closer to hear Linhardt better. His voice had dropped to something deep and mysterious, and Lysithea couldn’t help but be impressed. It was a gift to be able to tell a story like this, she thought, not as powerful as a beam of light or a ball of fire, but a kind of magic all the same. 

“‘If you eat the red rose, you will give birth to a healthy baby boy. If you choose the white, you will have a daughter.’” 

“‘And the crest?’ the queen asked anxiously. ‘Will my child bear our family’s crest?’” 

“‘Of course it shall,’ the woman told her, ‘but mind you eat only one rose. Whatever you do, you must not eat both.’” 

“So, of course, the queen returned home and did as the woman said, for she was skilled enough in magic to know when she had encountered a warlock who was her better. The roses bloomed, just as she had been told they would, and the queen ate the red one, for doesn’t every house wish for a son?” 

Hilda snorted but Linhardt ignored her, staring at Lysithea across the fire. 

“Soon after, regretting her decision, she ate the white as well, and nine months later gave birth to something monstrous.” 

“What was it?” Lysithea whispered, unable to look away from Linhardt’s face, the light from the fire throwing him half in shadow. 

“A lindworm,” Linhardt said with relish. “A great, scaled snake of a beast, white as snow, with eyes like cut tourmaline. Magic emanated from it, curling off it in great wisps like smoke or mist, undeniably the magic of the crest line.”

“The creature slithered out of the bedchamber and the queen was never sure she had truly seen it, because shortly after she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, a crest-bearer, perfect in every way. He grew up to be as handsome a man as any noblewoman could ask for, and powerfully magical. When he was eighteen his father sent him to the neighboring house to ask for the hand of their daughter in marriage.” 

“Once again, I must point out that if this story is meant to be set before the four saints came to Fodlan--” Lorenz began in snappish tone, but Hilda threw a pebble at him, and he stopped and closed his mouth. 

“The prince was on his way through the forest that separated their two houses when he came across a beast. Scaled white as snow, with eyes like cut tourmaline.” A log cracked in the fire, and Lysithea was not the only one who jumped. Linhardt’s mouth curved upward into a slight smile as he continued. “The lindworm spoke to the prince in a hiss. ‘A bride for me before a bride for you,’ it said, and the prince shot off a spell from his palms but it bounced off the scaly hide and he ran home, where his mother told him everything. The lindworm did, by all rights, have claim on the prince’s inheritance, for it had been born the eldest of the twins, and with a crest of its own. The magic it had emanated upon fleeing the bedchamber was proof enough of that. What could the king and queen do, but provide a wife for their eldest?”

Lysithea was biting her nails, a habit she had sworn she was going to break, but Linhardt’s story brought it out in her, made her anxious. His voice was so quiet as to blend in with the crackle of the flames as he continued. 

“Two successive noblewomen were married to the lindworm, and two successive noblewomen were eaten up on their wedding night. The king was in despair of ever finding a bride for the prince, and in no small amount of trouble with the neighboring lords whose daughters the lindworm had consumed. Eventually he devised a plan, and went down into the village to pick a suitable bride for the lindworm once and for all.” 

The sound of people coming towards them through the underbrush startled Lysithea from her attention to the story, and evidently startled Marianne as well, because she let out a little shriek as Claude and the professor moved into the circle of firelight. 

“What was that for?” Claude asked, bemused. 

“We’ve been telling scary stories,” Leonie explained. “Or, Linhardt has.” 

“Well, not to be a killjoy, but we still have a way to travel tomorrow and you should all be going to sleep soon,” Claude said cheerfully. “Finish the story tomorrow night when we’re on the way back to Garreg Mach, alright?” 

Lysithea thought, as she changed into a shift and put her hair up to sleep, that she would not be able to close her eyes even for a moment for thinking about the lindworm, and Linhardt, and how he seemed to know so much more about her magic than he was letting on, like he was waiting for her to trip up and reveal something to him. But she was asleep almost as soon as she’d laid down beside the professor, and for once she was glad she shared a tent with someone able and willing to protect her from monsters, real or imagined. 

Claude and the professor acquired whatever they’d all been sent halfway across the world to pick up without any trouble, but on the way back through the Kingdom they encountered another of the great beasts they’d been encountering more and more the last several months. The professor, Hilda, Claude and Lorenz circled around it, firing spells and arrows and flinging a sword and an axe, and when the professor yelled for Lysithea to run forward and finish it off with a spell of her own she didn’t hesitate, just drew upon that seemingly endless well inside her, ready to fling light into the maw of it and watch its body crumple. 

She ought to have been looking at its tail as well as its teeth.

“Lysithea!” Linhardt shouted just in time for her to turn and see a scaly appendage with foot long spikes come crashing down on her, and she screamed, firing her spell haphazardly and missing by inches. 

Then, just as sure as death had been about to bludgeon her, she was standing at the top of the hill, looking down into the valley where the professor was delivering a final killing blow to the thing’s throat as Linhardt lowered his hands and backed away from the spot she’d been standing only moments before. He’d warped her to safety. 

Lysithea wasn’t sure how to feel about it, honestly. 

As they were setting up tents and Claude and the professor were skinning the fish they’d caught for them all to cook, Lysithea pulled Lindhardt aside, leading him to stand under the trees at the side of the clearing where the Deer were making camp. What she meant to say was “thank you”, but he was looking at her in that coolly appraising way that she found so irritating so instead she snapped, “where did you hear that story about the lindworm?” 

“I happened across it in a book of old fairy tales when I was researching crest magic,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her. 

Lysithea breathed through her nose. “Right. All those details? Just like that?” 

“I may have embellished it somewhat. That’s part of what makes storytelling fun, I think.” 

“And how does the story end?” Lysithea said, widening her stance and crossing her arms. 

“If I remember correctly, the next person to be offered up to the lindworm is told to prepare a bath of lye and milk and to dress in many layers on their wedding night. They strip off an article of clothing and tell the lindworm that before they will lay down with it, it must do the same. It sheds its skin and becomes a man, they bathe him in the milk and lye, and they marry and live happily ever after.” Linhardt watched her very closely.

“You think it’s that easy to just... take something off like that? To stop being what you are?” 

“I think it can be,” Linhardt replied, his voice maddeningly calm, “with the right person and the right tools.” 

“Is that what you think,” Lysithea said with as much condescension as she could put into her voice, and Linhardt just nodded. 

“A lindworm’s shed skin is said to be very valuable, you know,” Linhardt said, peering at her. “An artifact said to grant vast insights into nature and medicine. As someone with an interest in such things, I’d be very interested to find one someday, if I could.” And with that he walked off. 

Lysithea stood where Linhardt had left her for several long minutes, not hearing the sounds of the rest of the Golden Deer setting up camp, getting ahold of her anger and annoyance at the presumption of the boy. Eventually, she wandered over to join the others around the campfire. 

When she clambered into the professor’s tent later that night she found Linhardt’s jacket folded neatly at the head of her bedroll, just the right size and shape for a pillow.


End file.
